Comments on: Eyeless

By: Eyeful « Town Mouse

Eyeful « Town Mouse — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 17:41:28 +0000

[...] good as new. Among the many helpful pieces of advice I got from you lot when I first lamented the loss of my camera, was one from Ross of Magicroundabout suggesting I try an independent camera shop. There was [...]

By: Butterfingers « Town Mouse

Butterfingers « Town Mouse — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 17:55:50 +0000

[...] – our beloved aardvark sugar bowl (and one of our few surviving wedding gifts), my beloved camera and now my beloved laptop. I reached out to take the laptop from the other half while it was still [...]

By: Dom

Dom — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 21:10:45 +0000

Even I have a point and shoot that lives in my pocket on outings and I quite often use my iPhone camera. Having a big SLR able to switch on, focus and take 8 shots in 1 second counts for nothing when it’s in a bag on your back with no lens currently attached to it. They’re big, bulky, heavy and inconvenient, but they are bit hard to use

By: disgruntled

disgruntled — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 17:22:02 +0000

thanks for the kind words… it looks like the last independent camera shop in the area went out of business, but I’ll ask around.

regarding the SLR, even if I could master it, and could guarantee not to drop it, having something I can’t just have in my pocket when I need it is the problem. Maybe I’ll sweet talk the other half into lending me the big one more often, but they do say that the best camera is the one you have…

By: Magicroundabout

Magicroundabout — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 12:52:19 +0000

We had a recent problem with our little Canon happy-snapper. My wife had dropped it and the camera was mostly fine, but the automatically-closing lens cap had broken and the metal rim around the lens had got dented.

We took it to a local camera shop and the guy there was really helpful – it took him a while but he sourced a small replacement part from Canon and did the incredibly fiddly job of fitting it, for the relatively small sum of £25.

Might be worth taking it to a small, local, independant photo shop, rather than a Jessopsy chain-type place. Or give Great Western Cameras in Swindon a call and see if they can do a repair by post?

While that repair was being done we bought a “ruggedised” replacement – a waterproof, shockproof, Olympus. It’s very good and, apparently, the Olympus warranty is much better than other makes such as Panasonic.

And finally, my lovely wife got a DSLR for Christmas (a Nikon D5000 if you’re wondering). I’ve been hesitant about buying her one on the basis that:
– she dropped the happy-snapper
– we probably wouldn’t take it everywhere and use it much

BUT…we’ve been so impressed with the quality. Even the first few indoor shots on fully automatic, straight out of the box, were vastly better than we’d have got from a smaller camera. Photography has quickly become a fairly major hobby for her and she’ll find any excuse to take pictures now.

We like your photos! You live in a beautiful place and have a good eye for composition. I’d encourage you to get to grips with your other half’s big camera so we can see just how really beautiful your little corner of Scotland is.

By: disgruntled

disgruntled — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 09:47:40 +0000

Thanks guys

I have now tried turning it on without the memory card (didn’t have a spare one), and some gentle encouragement, both to no avail. I think it does try and close down (there’s a feeble whirring noise) but nothing shifts which makes me think it may be something mechanical rather than software. But it seems a common problem with fujis.

Might look for a refurbished one… or head down the Tottenham Court Road when I’m in London and see if anyone can help

By: WestfieldWanderer

WestfieldWanderer — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 09:06:11 +0000

Something similar happened to my Fuji Finepix a few years ago. I took it back to the shop for advice. All they did was to swop the XD card and it closed down properly. We put my own card back in and it worked fine. The suggestion was that, either because of a software glitch, low battery or low temperature (it always seems to pack up in cold weather), the camera failed to go through its shutdown sequence properly and just stopped. Evidently it must use the XD card as memory as well as for storing picture files.
Anyway, might be worth a try.

By: WOL

WOL — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 23:27:47 +0000

Odd, isn’t it, how some people are the kiss of death to electronic equipment. I had to get a new camera about 5 years ago because after they did the service pack thing for windows XP, the software for it wouldn’t run right any more. They quit making the model MP3 player I have 4 years ago. I was able to get a third handset for my cordless phone really cheap because they don’t make that model any more either (There’s no phone jack in my living room or my kitchen.) Of course, I did run my first cellphone through the washer a month after I got it, but that was 6 years ago, and I still have the replacement. I’ve had the little Maglite flash light on my keychain for almost 25 years.

By: John Gibson

John Gibson — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 22:46:14 +0000

what ever you do please do it quick, I enjoy your pictures.

John

By: Dom

Dom — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 20:28:08 +0000

SLRs are not complicated. In fact the more expensive and ‘pro’ they get the less complicated they get. These point and shoot cameras come with four and a half million modes all of which provide hints to the camera as to what you’re trying to achieve. With an SLR you don’t hint, you just tell. Put it onto AV mode (A on a Nikon). Set it to the lowest value if you want nice blurry backgrounds (the lowest value will be dependant on the lens), f8 if you’re doing portraits, f16 or f32 (again, may depend on the lens) if you’re doing landscapes. It’ll work out the shutter speed for you. If it’s less than about 1/100th of a second increase the ISO setting until it’s not or use a tripod. Job done. #soapbox